4 of 5One frustrating aspect of the 2012 Toyota Prius Four is, interestingly, its fuel economy--which is topped by several conventional vehicles currently on the market.

Photo by Toyota

5 of 5Uncomfortable seats, a permanently on navigation system and obnoxious beeping marred the interior of the 2012 Toyota Prius Four.

Photo by Toyota

SENIOR ONLINE EDITOR RORY CARROLL: So, I'm first. I am not a huge Prius fan, but I did appreciate that the plastic surfaces in the Prius interior aren't meant to look like leather. Instead, Toyota seems to have tried to make them look like fur and the result is even stranger than it sounds. But in eschewing the more common “pebbled” treatment given to most automotive interior plastics in favor of what looks a bit like dog hair frozen in carbonite, Toyota was being adventurous and I like to encourage that sort of thing.

Other than that little flight of fancy, the 2012 Toyota Prius has little to earn a recommendation.

Much has been written about the merits of buying a Prius for the sake of the environment, but let's get this out of the way first: Buying any brand-new car to help the environment is like eating a dozen doughnuts and two pounds of bacon at every meal in an effort to lose weight. But, if caring about the environment means living a life wholly unconnected with anything approaching reason or thought—and you absolutely must have a car manufactured specifically for you and shipped to you on a boat from Japan, and then transported to you by a diesel-powered tractor trailer—then maybe it makes sense to buy one that returns very good fuel mileage, even if that car is packed full of exotic, toxic materials that cannot be disposed of using our current waste-disposal infrastructure. But, here's the thing about the Prius: the fuel mileage isn't good enough to justify its being built, let alone anyone actually buying it. I saw an indicated 44 mpg in mostly highway driving which is very good. However, under nearly identical conditions, a Volkswagen Passat TDI returned much better economy.

Prius acolytes will tell you that the Prius does much better in the city than on the highway, to which I'd respond that if you're mostly doing city driving, you should probably just get a bus pass or a Zip-Car membership. That is, if you really care about the environment.

The Passat comes with far fewer of the above mentioned environmental drawbacks and it's made in the United States, so it's basically the automotive equivalent of buying locally grown produce.

The drawbacks to owning a Prius do not end at having to delude yourself about your carbon footprint though, the car is thoroughly miserable in plenty of other ways.

The Prius is basically a fashion accessory meant to convince others that its owner is living some kind of “green” lifestyle. But, as a fashion accessory, it's horrid. It's ugly, yes, but not in a “novel technology that is too functional to look pretty” way. It started off that way, with engineers designing a basic shape for maximum aerodynamic efficiency. But, when you consider that other, normal-looking cars can match or at least almost match its fuel efficiency, you have to wonder if it's necessary for any car to look like a disfigured fish.

At least cars like the Chevrolet Volt look futuristic. It may or may not be any better for the environment, but if I'm going to buy a car with batteries, it must look at least a little like a spaceship inside. Driving the Prius is like using some kind of discarded 1990s personal digital assistant. Though, Toyota would be wise to add just one more gauge that shows the driver how quickly their soul is being sucked away.

But the Prius is also ugly like a new, 20,000-square-foot McMansion that uses every energy efficiency technology available to distract its occupants from the fact that it probably shouldn't exist in the first place. It is a fundamentally dishonest proposition.

To each of the senses, the Prius provides either endless drudgery or endless misery. It's as if Toyota set their very best people on removing every ounce of joy from the automotive experience.

But, they'll continue to sell like hotcakes.

EXECUTIVE EDITOR ROGER HART: Rory certainly nailed the soul-less nature of the Prius in that there's very little joy in driving this car. I found the seats about as uncomfortable as any on the market today, including those from Hyundai. Not being able to switch off the navigation system and have just the audio details up on the screen drives me crazy, as does the beeping noise when the car is in reverse. Is that really necessary?

And no matter how many hybrids I drive, I still cannot get over the uncomfortable feeling of the regenerative brakes, and in this car, the hesitancy in the drivetrain, even at speed. It's one thing to step on the throttle and have to wait until the computer figures out what is needed to begin forward motion. It's another to be traveling at what you thought is a constant speed and to feel, not only through the seat of your pants, but also through the throttle pedal, an on/off kind of thing. It's very odd and not at all confidence-inspiring.

The hard tires make for a rather rough ride and not a ton of grip and there was far more wind noise creeping into the cabin than I remember. And the split rear window thing just doesn't work for me either—it was a bad idea in the Pontiac Aztek, and it's still a bad idea here. The horizontal bar blocks way too much of the rear view.

I look at the Prius as a whole rolling collection of compromises, certainly high-tech compromises, but for $33k, you could buy several different vehicles that would deliver better fuel economy, if that's your goal in buying a car. A loaded Volkswagen Jetta TDI, for example, costs about $27k, gets better fuel mileage and doesn't have anywhere near the compromises. True, it doesn't scream “I'm a greenie” like the Prius, but that would be its only downside.

ASSOCIATE EDITOR JAKE LINGEMAN: The first thing you'll be annoyed with in the 2012 Toyota Prius Four is the beeping. It beeps when you get in for no reason, and it also beeps like a garbage truck when you back up. I hate that with a passion.

The other thing I realize after filling the car up this morning was the fuel economy. I averaged 32 mpg. Really? This is supposed to be a highly efficient hybrid, you can get those numbers out of a Mazda 3, and it has way more soul.

True, I was making no effort to conserve gas, though I did keep it in Eco and EV mode most of the time. The few times I did switch it to power mode I was actually a little surprised by the pull off the line. It wasn't dangerous or agonizingly slow as I predicted.

I couldn't get completely comfortable in the seats either, but it did feel a bit better in the morning when I lowered the seat to a good height. The views are decent everywhere but out the rear. Like the guys said, the horizontal bar runs right across the rearview mirror.

The styling is typical Toyota, inside and out. The exterior looks like, well, a Prius. And the interior is relatively bland. Again I'll echo the statements above, I hate that the main screen goes back to navigation when you don't touch it.

The price of about $33,000 is where the car usually falls. I know you could get a Nissan Altima or a Chevrolet Cruze Eco for that price, probably cheaper, and you would return about the same mileage. This is one of the few cars out today that I really can't find redeeming value in.